Friday, August 31, 2018

The NGO Reach Initiative found more evidence that Iraq’s
displacement crisis may be reaching a tipping point. It did interviews
with 1600 displaced (IDPs) households living outside camps in Dohuk, Irbil,
Ninewa, Salahaddin and Sulaymaniya. Most the respondents said they had no plans
to return to their homes in the next 3 months.

Wednesday, August 29, 2018

Basra is currently facing a growing water crisis. 17,000
people have been hit by colic and diarrhea, and there are warnings that
cholera might break out. The cause of this problems are two-fold. One is increasingly
salinity moving north up the Shatt al-Arab waterway from the Persian Gulf.
Second is the reduction of water coming down the Tigris River from the north due
to a new Turkish dam. The dam project started over a decade ago yet the Iraqi
government failed to make adequate preparations for it, and is now paying the
price.

Tuesday, August 28, 2018

Now that the manual
recount of Iraq’s May election has been completed and certified, President
Fuad Masum called
for the newly elected parliament to have it first session on Monday September
3, 2018. The assembly is to elect a speaker and his deputies, then a new
president, and then the new executive is to call for the largest bloc to form a
government all within 45 days. The problem is the winning parties are not ready
to form a new administration yet.

distributed to provinces based upon
population and needs Still no agreement over signing oil contracts or making
major decisions

2006 ISF raid in Diwaniya led to major gun battle with Mahdi
Army and other militias

Captured Iraqi soldiers were
executed in a public square More than 40 killed and 90 wounded US military said
Diwaniya battle was a major victory for the ISF but was actually ended by
political deal with Sadr

2006 Report around 100 Iraqi soldiers from 10th
Division in Maysan refused to deploy to

Baghdad for Operation Together
Forward II Not 1st time ISF units had refused to leave their home
base

1933 Iraqi govt sent letter to British newspaper claiming
only a few Assyrian villages had

been emptied of people Baghdad had
returned all stolen goods No truth to reports villages had been burned Was
propaganda effort to cover up massacre of 600 Assyrians and 60 villages having
been looted and destroyed

1994 Iraqi Vanguard for National Salvation took
responsibility for car bomb in Baghdad

1998 UN inspector Ritter quit after his anti-concealment
unit was disbanded at request of

Clinton admin Ritter claimed from
Nov 97-August 98 Clinton admin had tried to block inspectors work 7 times and
came from top of White House staff Ritter’s claims about Clinton convinced many
on UN Security Council US manipulating inspectors for its own aims

2002 Cheney speech at Veterans of Foreign War Called Iraq a mortal
threat to US Said no

doubt Iraq had WMD and that it was
good at deceiving weapons inspectors Said Iraqi defectors like Hussein Kamal
proved Iraq had renewed its nuke program Hussein Kamal defected in 1995 Said
Iraq ended nuke program and killed 1996 so couldn’t know what Iraq doing in
2001 Argued UN inspectors would fail in Iraq Cheney gave speech because felt
losing argument within administration over Iraq war

2002 Powell argued that US had to go through UN to deal with
Iraq at National Security

Council

2003 Report US left thousands of munitions dumps all over
Iraq which were looted by

insurgents
and militias

2003 Bremer said Iraq could not pay for its own
reconstruction and U.S. would have to put

up several billion dollars to do it
CPA could not meet Iraq’s electricity needs until summer of 2004

2003 US launched Op Ivy Needle to hunt down criminals and
Baathists in Salahaddin

2003 DepSecState Armitage said US might consider a
multinational force under UN to

help with
security after rejecting UN role

2003 Humanitarian aid groups announced pulling out workers
from Iraq after terrorist

attacks

2004 US halted military operations in 2nd Battle
of Najaf to allow negotiations to end

Friday, August 24, 2018

Gertrude Bell And
Iraq, A Life And Legacy was the result of a conference held in 2013. Eleven
authors turned their presentations into chapters for the book. A variety of
topics were covered from Bell’s trips through the Middle East and her interest
in archeology, to her place in women’s history, to her contributions in forming
the Iraqi state, to her legacy in preserving Iraqi history. Due to the breadth
of topics covered Gertrude Bell And Iraq
is up and down with some chapters providing interesting insights into Bell’s
life, while others are purely for specialists.

2003 Ayatollah Hakim wounded in bombing at his Najaf office Some
blamed Sadr for

attack in
growing inter-Shiite rivalry

2003 Bremer admitted US not doing a good job securing Iraq’s
borders

2004 Panel found Rumsfeld’s orders on interrogations
contributed to abuse of prisoners in

Iraq Found that U.S. underestimated
need for prisons in postwar Iraq then didn’t attempt to solve the problem Contradicted
White House claim that Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal was act of a few prison
guards Found Abu Ghraib prison abuse was not part of an intelligence gathering operation

Wednesday, August 22, 2018

In 1976 part of the secret Senate Intelligence Committee’s
Pike report was leaked to the Village
Voice. The Pike Committee was put together in 1975 to investigate the
activities of the Central Intelligence Agency, Federal Bureau of Investigation
and National Security Agency. It included information on how the Nixon
Administration began supporting the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) to help
the Shah pressure Iraq over a border dispute. Once that issue was resolved the
U.S. and Iran abandoned the Kurds whose rebellion was crushed.

defected to Jordan Kamal said Iraq hid
its WMD and nuke programs from inspectors but all programs ended after Gulf War
US and UN didn’t believe Kamal’s claim that Iraq had ended its programs Were
convince Iraq would always hide WMD

1996 Massoud Barzani wrote Saddam asking for help to fight
PUK and their Iranian

backers in
Irbil Tariq Aziz released letter

2003 Bush said Iraq war had transformed to one against
Baathists and Al Qaeda

2003 Australian intel officer testified to parliament no
pre-war evidence of Iraq-Al Qaeda

ties and Iraq’s WMD contained Said US
flooded with disinformation by anti-Saddam Iraqis before war

2005 Incomplete draft constitution presented to parliament Given
another extension

The number of displaced in Iraq
continued to decline. The total finally dipped below 2 million in July 2018. At
the same time, the rate of people going home has been slowing down. That means
the country could be heading towards a tipping point where this process largely
ends.

Saturday, August 18, 2018

The Tragedy of the
Assyrian Minority in Iraq was originally published in 1935 and covers the
history of Assyrians in Iraq after World War I, and their massacre at the hands
of the Iraqi army in 1933. It was written by R.S. Stafford who was a British
officer stationed in Mosul province during that time period. It is a good source
that documents those tragic events.

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About Me

Musings On Iraq was started in 2008 to explain the political, economic, security and cultural situation in Iraq via original articles and interviews. If you wish to contact me personally my email is: motown67@aol.com